It’s one of William Shakespeare’s most famous comedies and the Midland Festival Ballet will bring it to the stage in a new way.
Next month, Midland Festival Ballet will continue its 30th anniversary season with a ballet version of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”
Performances will take place at 7:30 p.m. April 6 and 2:30 p.m. April 7 at the Wagner Noël Performing Arts Center.
Tickets can be purchased online at midlandfestivalballet.org/midsummer.
The ballet takes place in an enchanted forest outside of Athens and consists of four plots all connected by the celebration of the wedding of Theseus to Hippolyta.
As many people might remember from reading the play in their English classes, the story consists of several subplots.
Hermia and Lysander are in love but Hermia is betrothed to Demetrius, whom, Helena is madly in love with.
Hermia and Lysander run into the forest to escape her arranged marriage.
Craziness ensues as another plot involves Oberon, King of the Fairies and his queen Titania and before long, all subplots converge on each other.
Gabriel Zertuche is the production manager of the show and spoke to the media at a press event Tuesday at the Globe Theatre at Odessa College.
“As a production manager, I handle all of the behind the scenes stuff so I take care of the crew at Wagner Noël,” Zertuche said. “They’re a great crew that we get to work with for our productions. We’ve hired a lighting designer from Houston who is incredible. … A lot goes into the behind the scenes of ballet. We have all the scenery and the sets that we have to deal with. We also have a really great stage manager from Pittsburg, Pa., who will be helping assist us back stage and calling queues and all that. We get the show ready for the dancers.”
It’s not the first time that Midland Festival Ballet has done “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” with the last time coming in 2016.
“In 2016, I was very excited to do this,” Midland Festival Ballet Artistic Director Susan Clark said. “It was such a beautiful production. I had been waiting for the right time to bring this back and this is the right time since we’re bigger now and have a bigger following and I wanted more people to get to enjoy this production. It’s been very special and it’s interesting to see the different dancers now take on the different characters. It’s going to feel like a different ballet but with the same story.”
For Zertuche, there are many different aspects that go into putting on this production.
“This is a unique production because it has beautiful sets and scenery for us,” Zertuche said. “We have a forest scene that’s nice. There won’t be many changes in it. It’s a beautiful forest. For me, it’s really fun because of the characters. It’s a funny ballet so it’s fun to watch backstage and putting the show on. This one is unique because it is lit differently than it has in the past. We’re excited to put it together.”
There won’t be much time with getting equipment moved over to the Wagner Noël next week as Zertuche says they’ll have only a couple of days to get the lights and scenery transferred and set up.
“We start loading in on Wednesday before the show so it takes us two days to get the lights properly focused and all the crew has to hang up individual lights where the scenery will hang so it does take us a few days of work to get it set up,” Zertuche said. “Then, the dancers come in the evenings and do their rehearsals and staging after we finish for the day.”
As one would expect, there’s some stress involved with the final preparations but Zertuche was quick to praise the volunteers that help out with each production.
“There’s a lot of stress involved but we have an incredible group of volunteers,” Zertuche said. “As a nonprofit, we depend heavily on those volunteers. They do a great job. They’ve been with us for many years. It is a little stressful but we pull it off.”
Clark, who’s been involved with Midland Festival Ballet for 26 years, talked about how lucky they’ve been to put on this production.
“I feel very fortunate with a strong board and with money we’ve received, we’ve been able to bring in main choreographers and so many different top people in our field to educate and work with our dancers,” Clark said. “For me, personally, it’s been such a journey to see it go from something in a high school to bringing in dancers from New York City ballet and Houston ballet and be able to share it with the Permian basin.”
For more information about the show, go to midlandfestivalballet.org/midsummer.
If you go
- What: Midland Festival Ballet’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”
- When: 7:30 p.m. April 6, 2:30 p.m. April 7.
- Where: Wagner Noël Performing Arts Center.
- Where to purchase tickets: tinyurl.com/4fuhsm68
